“So you can talk to it now?”
“Yes, I’m 100% certain we’ve figured out the language.” She looked back at the fox-like alien who sat on his pallet watching them. “He won’t talk to me, though. I can tell I’m saying things he understands because of his reaction to the first thing I said.”
“What was the first thing you said?”
“Hello, what’s your name?”
“Makes sense,” Michael replied and stared at the alien. “Can you translate for me?”
“Sure,” she said and resettled the appliance in her mouth.
Michael stood within inches of the glass and tapped on it. The alien cocked his head. “I know you can hack our computers,” he said. When Jophiel didn’t speak, he looked at her. She had a shocked expression on her face. “Later,” he said, then nodded toward the alien, and she started to click and trill in its language.
The alien turned his gaze from Michael to Jophiel, obviously intent on listening. Michael saw why she was certain he understood. When Jophiel got to the end of her translation, the alien’s head snapped around, and he skewered Michael with his tiny, black eyes. Bingo.
“Ask him where Grange is hiding.”
“I don’t know how to say a person’s name,” Jophiel said.
“Just say the burned woman.”
She spoke to the Vulpes who, this time, didn’t take his eyes off Michael. When she finished, the alien showed his tiny, razor-sharp teeth. Michael was sure the alien wasn’t smiling.
“Okay, fine,” Michael said. He took out his tablet and typed, “Ariel, this is Michael.”
“Go ahead,” came the text reply.
Michael spoke aloud as he typed. “I know you’re still working out all of our alien guest’s biology, but have you learned enough to produce a sedative?”
The response took a little longer this time. “Yes, I believe so, but there is some risk.”
“I understand. Prepare an anesthesia. I’m going to authorize you to do some exploratory surgery. It seems the Vulpes can communicate with computers.”
“Is that so? That means I’ll have to operate on his brain, the most likely source of such an ability.”
“I would rather you didn’t,” said a new voice in English with a slightly nasal tone and high pitch.
Michael let the grin spread across his face as he looked up from his screen. The Vulpes had risen and walked over to the glass which was only inches away. Michael typed, “Make the drug; standby on the surgery.”
“As you wish.” Michael thought the simple, typed response managed to convey his disappointment. He’d wanted to operate on the living alien since he fell into their hands. He glanced at Jophiel who looked shocked and annoyed, no doubt miffed the alien had learned English before she learned Vulpes.
“I’ll repeat my question,” Michael said, now speaking into the microphone which would relay his voice into the isolation chamber. “Where is Grange?”
“You should release me,” the Vulpes said.
“Why don’t we start simply? I’m Michael, leader of the Heptagon. Do you have a name?”
“I know who you are. I am First Scout, leader of the mission to your solar system.”
“You haven’t been very cooperative.”
“You shot down my ship and killed most of my crew.”
“You brought a plague with you.”
“I don’t owe you an explanation, human.”
“Is that how it’s going to be?” Michael asked.
“I will say it one more time, let me go.”
Michael tapped his tablet, sending another message to Ariel. “When you have the anesthetic ready, I want the Vulpes unconscious.”
“There is some risk,” the biologist replied.
“Noted.” Michael looked back at the alien. Although he was only about half as tall as Michael, it felt like First Scout was staring at him eye-to-eye. It was a little disconcerting. The Vulpes didn’t say anything more. Michael turned to leave.
“What should I do?” Jophiel asked.
“See if you can change First Scout’s mind,” he said and departed without waiting to hear what she said.
Once he was outside, Michael made another call.
“Go ahead,” Gabriel said.
“Our alien guest can use his mind to talk with computers.”
“Really? Is that how the medical records were altered?”
“Yes.”
“Why only do that?” Gabriel asked. “Why didn’t he try to, I don’t know, get loose?”
“Where would he go? He arranged the nanovirus healing for the Coastie we had in custody.”
“Strange. Can you ask the woman why?”
“She’s missing.”
“I thought she was a crispy critter. The nanovirus wouldn’t have completely healed her, would it?”
“No, but it healed her enough that she was able to slip out. Since there’s no indication of any broken locks, I think the Vulpes helped her gain access to secure areas too.”
“I am really beginning to like the fox.” She laughed.
“You would.” Fucking hackers, worse than graffiti artists. “Don’t get too attached, I might have to kill him.”
“A suboptimal solution, I would say.”
“I agree. However, I can’t let him continue.”
“The telepathy must have some limits, or he would do more. Why not jack up power on the isolation field?”
Michael stopped and nodded. She had a point. The isolation cell had a faraday cage which was part of the alien isolation protocol. However, going in and giving the alien his own survival rations might have created a weakness. “Can you enhance the isolation field to cut him off from our computers?”
“I can see if I can figure out how he performs his tricks, sure.”
“Do it,” Michael ordered. As he spoke, Michael wandered outside to the alien ship. It was on the hauler, and the handlers were prepared to move it. The specialists would begin taking it apart soon, and he hoped there would be a lot of useful technology inside. They were in the endgame of the fall. Once the last few vestiges of government were wiped away, the reconstruction could begin.
Michael was so pleased, he didn’t see the figure dressed as a medical technician climb onto the heavy hauler, then into the alien ship.
* * *
Operation Roundhouse
Approaching San Nicolas Island
“On the deck, Pepper!” General Rose called over the Osprey’s intercom.
“I’m not an expert on these fucked up birds,” the pilot replied.
“They have SAMs, Warrant Officer. How are you at dodging missiles?”
“On the deck, you bet!” The Osprey angled down toward the waves.
Rose watched out the rear door as the water became precipitously close. Radar had a difficult time telling aircraft from waves below an altitude of 20 feet. Waves seemed to be skimming along below them close enough for him to reach out and grab a fish. He had a brief stab of fear; what if a killer whale jumped up and hit them? Sea monsters. The thought made him chuckle. Here, there be monsters!
“We’ve reached waypoint Alpha,” Pepper said over the intercom.
“Roger that.” Rose switched to the fleet channel. “David to Passkey.”
“Passkey, go ahead.”
“Waypoint Alpha, I repeat, we’ve reached Waypoint Alpha.”
“Acknowledged. We’re shipping your package.”
“Roger.” Rose grinned. Let’s see what the fuckers think of this.
* * *
USS Russell
The Flotilla
150 Nautical Miles West of San Diego, CA
The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the USS Russell, came about onto a north-westerly course and centered her wheel. “Authorization for fire mission,” Captain Paine informed the weapons control officer in the CIC.
“Roger, I concur. Stand by to fire.”
The missile technician fed the details into the computers which quickly assigned
targets and transmitted the data to the missiles nestled in their cells. “We have a green board,” the technician reported.
“Affirmative,” Paine replied. “Fire.”
On the Russell’s deck, nine doors opened with mechanical precision. An instant later, plumes of fire erupted from the blast channels that carried the fire of the rocket engines away from the relatively delicate missiles. The light metal sheeting covering the cell exploded outward as the first Tomahawk cruise missile blasted skyward, angled slightly, and leveled off. Three seconds later, the second one followed, then the third. Eleven seconds after boosting out of their cells, the missiles’ launch rockets burned out and fell away. The missiles extended their stubby wings, and their turbofan engines screamed to life. Twenty-four seconds after the first missile launched, the entire wave of missiles was airborne.
Thirty thousand feet above them, an E-2 Hawkeye from the Gerald R. Ford took command of the missiles. The weapons had already descended to 10 feet above the mean wave height and reached their cruising speed of 550 mph. At this speed and altitude, they would pass over a ship before most occupants heard them coming.
“Inform David their package is in the mail.”
* * *
Operation Roundhouse
Approaching San Nicolas Island
“Here they come, General!” Pepper said over the intercom.
Rose moved closer to the back door and tried to find them. The sunlight made the sea look like a wrinkled mirror reflecting a million brilliant flashes of light. He squinted and saw a phalanx of tiny, moving darts just above the water. “Got’em,” he said.
The cruise missiles caught up to them in a heartbeat, blasting past the four Ospreys so quickly, Rose couldn’t make out more than their basic shape.
“Hooah!” the man manning the M240 yelled as the missiles flashed past.
Rose checked the gear on his battle harness and tried to forget that he hadn’t done what he was about to do in thirty years.
* * *
The controllers on the Hawkeye watched the developing situation via their APS-145 radar. At the aircraft’s current altitude, they could see more than 200 miles. Normally, in the current AO, the radar would be clogged with airborne targets, since both the Los Angeles and San Diego flight corridors were within range. Now, however, they only saw a couple dozen targets, including the cruise missiles, the Ospreys, and the various helicopters searching for the elusive submarine.
The cruise missiles passed the four Osprey, then split into two groups, one of four and one of five. They were staggered and locked on targets, designated to arrive every 10 seconds. In less than a minute, they would hit the unsuspecting island.
“We’ve got aircraft lifting off from the targeted island.”
The skilled radar technicians analyzed the reading and concluded the targets were drones. They reported the new development and continued orbiting the area.
* * *
Classified Genesis Facility
San Nicolas Island
Chamuel sipped some soup and dabbled with her screen’s configuration. The food on the ship had been drab because of the limited stores available. The alien plague was inconvenient. Even so, she continued on as best she could. She reached over and touched the air conditioning controls, dropping the temp by two degrees.
She was quite happy now that she’d brought her workroom online. She had an entire wall of high-tech monitors giving her at least four times the viewable data, and she was glorifying in the sheer level of output. Plus, her preferred brand of Darjeeling tea was now available. All in all, it was a pretty darn good day.
She’d just finished her soup when a screen flashed. She had customized her rig so the entire screen instantly became dedicated to whatever data had triggered the alert. The island’s defense alerts were routed through her data gathering programs as they were sent to Michael’s soldiers. A series of radar cross sections were detected to the southeast. Strange.
Chamuel didn’t immediately consider the alert of major importance. The sensors were extremely sensitive, and when she’d activated her base system, there’d been dozens of such alerts in the logs. She’d wasted an hour going over them, only to realize they were meaningless things like flocks of birds or waves. She’d turned down the sensitivity and reduced the range, but something had triggered them again.
She noted that Michael had ordered the Wasps into the air and the Hunter back from the Flotilla. This meant Michael had what he wanted and was about to finish off the Flotilla. That was fine with her. The sooner any organized opposition was cleared from the playing field, the sooner they could work on stabilizing the situation.
She’d already seen the recording of Michael getting the Vulpes to speak. First Scout was an interesting name. Chamuel plugged it into one of her tracking programs; it was one of a thousand things she was watching. She examined how the new name and the Vulpes’ knowledge of English correlated with other facts, until the proximity alarm sounded again. Then again!
She pulled up the detail. Exactly nine radar returns, both times. Oh, fuck. She pulled the data and put it into a comparative file. Her eyes scanned the information as quickly as the computer. She extrapolated size, speed, and altitude. The conclusion was almost immediate. Cruise missiles.
“Michael!” she yelled into the island communications network.
“What now?”
“Inbound cruise missile attack. Nine of them. First strike ETA thirty seconds!”
* * *
Michael had been reading orders on his tablet while he walked from the dock to the main building when the first radar alarm went off. Before he could look, Chamuel overrode it. He trusted the tactician to know whether something was worth his time as the military leader of the Heptagon, so he continued on.
“Michael, sir.”
“Go ahead, Colonel Baker.”
“The Wasps are finally ready.”
“Very good, launch them. Program them for assault on the only remaining Arleigh Burke-class first.”
“Understood.”
A moment later, the scream of jet turbines echoed over the island, and he caught sight of the drones rising from the runway. They took off in pairs until all six were airborne. The Wasps bore a distinct resemblance to the F-18 Hornet, which made sense since they were based on it. A lack of cockpit and the addition of more advanced engines gave the Wasps a vaguely insectile appearance. The name was fitting.
Besides being smaller and faster, the Wasps had gained considerable range and endurance. All six were heavily armed with air-to-surface missiles that were just as advanced as they were. The Flotilla had minutes to live.
Michael had just entered the main building when Chamuel yelled her warning over the radio.
“Cruise missiles?”
“Yes!” she insisted.
“Mother fucker,” he snarled and ran, changing his radio’s channel back to Baker’s. “Inbound missile attack!”
“The radar warnings were overridden.”
“Chamuel was wrong. Prepare for attack.”
“Activating defenses.”
Michael cursed as he climbed the two flights of stairs to the operations center where Baker worked. The room had armored windows and had served as a control tower in the days when San Nicolas was a navy airfield. Just before he punched his access code into the keypad by the armored door, he heard the Brrrrrr! of the close-in defense cannons firing.
* * *
USS Vandergrift
Conducting ASW Operations
175 miles Northwest of San Diego, California
“Got it, Captain!”
Richards raced over to the sonar board with its lines of signal traces. A tight squiggle amid all the other noise showed the telltale sound of a supercavitating trace. It had to be one of the skunks they’d been trying to find.
“Where’s the Viking?” he asked his XO.
“Seventy miles north, out of range.”
“Two Seahawks are vectoring in; they’ll be i
n position in five minutes.”
“Not soon enough,” Richards mumbled.
“That’s gotta be it, sir!” the technician insisted.
“I think you’re correct, son,” the Captain replied. “Weapons, standby on starboard launcher. Program bracketed spread.”
“Targeting solution is set,” the weapons officer replied.
“Fire.”
On the deck the triangular Mark 32 torpedo tube sounded an alarm as it came alive and rotated. High power motors whined as the tubes pressurized. Five seconds later, the first door opened, and a Mark 46 torpedo was ejected. By the time it hit the water, a second had joined it. Less than a minute later, the launcher rotated back to its centerline, having launched three torpedoes.
“Torpedoes away,” the weapons officer announced. “All three running hot and true with linked guidance.”
“The damned sub is five times faster than our torpedoes,” the XO whispered.
“More like eight times,” Richards replied. “But we have to get them on a defensive footing before—”
“Enemy torpedo in the water!” sonar called out.
“Flank speed!” Richards ordered. “Hard into the bearing. Prepare to launch remaining torpedoes.”
“Time to impact…” the sonarman paused as he calculated. The Vandergrift leaned to port as her rudder came over hard, and she turned. “Time to impact, ten seconds!”
“Transmit the skunk’s bearing and range to the Russell,” Richards said. “Tell Captain Paine I said good hunting.”
The radio man quickly relayed the information. Ten seconds later, the enemy torpedo exploded under the Vandergrift, tearing her in two. The ship’s magazine exploded, killing Captain Richards and his bridge crew instantly.
* * *
USS Russell
Turning Point (Book 3): A Time To Live Page 34